


The Comfort In The Cosmos

by inkyandness



Category: Nomad of Nowhere (Web Series)
Genre: Dandy-Lions Mentioned, Don Paragon Mentioned, F/F, Forehead Kisses, Ft. Skout's Moral Dilemmas, Mutual Pining, Nomad Mentioned, Toth is not the best with empathy but she's doing her best and what else can she do but that, Useless Lesbians, Useless Sapphics, two girls sitting under the stars five-ish inches apart because they're vaguely gay, vaguely a character study
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-15
Updated: 2018-04-15
Packaged: 2019-04-23 02:25:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,339
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14322504
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inkyandness/pseuds/inkyandness
Summary: Skout is troubled by moral quandaries outside of her pay grade, and Toth tries to give her dear friend and right-hand man the emotional comfort she deserves...Kind of. Mostly star-gazing and tangents disguised as a story.





	The Comfort In The Cosmos

It was easy to feel like you were run ragged when you ran with the Dandy Lions like Skout did. They were the roughest and toughest bounty hunters in Nowhere, where the only law that was followed was the law of the Don, and any moral quandaries outside of the word was outside of their pay grade.

True, it was easy to feel exhausted when you did such a thing, but Skout just…Wasn’t.  Sure, her eyes were weak and weary, her skeleton was making some weird as heck clicking sounds, and her muscles felt constrained and strained. She felt tired, but she wasn’t. She couldn’t be. Too much ran through her mind as she listened to Toth give the nightly, “you better rest up well, because tomorrow we’ve got a long day ahead of us. We may have found where he’s been finding and…”

Although Skout loved to listen to Toth, especially when she was excited-or at least driven-about something, Skout found her thoughts wandering. Her head was filled with questions that it felt like she’d never get answers for.

_"Why did the Nomad save us?"_

_"And just who is he?"_

_"Why was magic outlawed in the first place?"_

_"Is he really all that bad?"_

_"Where could he be now?"_

_"I wonder if the couple from the oil rig are okay…That water can’t be enough to live off of for even a week, much less worth half a dozen oil barrels…"_

_"Why do good and innocent people have to give up so much for so little? This certainly can’t be right, but what can I do?"_

_"What in the world can I do..."_

She watched with glazed eyes as the soldiers put out the fire and returned to their wagons for a night of rest.

“Skout.” Toth said, sternly. “That means you too.”

“Gah!” Skout jumped, putting her hands in front of her, poised to fight, but turned her head away with her eyes clenched shut. Toth had talked her a few fighting techniques in order to make sure that her favorite spittoon girl wasn’t _completely_ helpless, which Skout thought was rather kind, but she was still a bit jittery about things, and when she was jittery about things, her reaction time was…Screwy. I mean, she did deck that guy that one time, which she still felt awfully guilty about…But still!

“Sorry Toth! Guess I’m still kind of antsy after all of the ghost stories we told tonight!” She smiled, hoping it would bring Toth to ease. 

Well, “ease” may not have been the word she was looking for, but Skout knew that it fit…Okay into that sentiment. Sure, Toth was one to rarely relax, but Skout could usually tell when she was upset about the Nomad or the Don, which was a constant, pressing worry that that kept her as straight as a line. That’s when she would appear impeccable, like she was entirely incapable of making a mistake, even if that’s what she was doing the entire time. The only way Skout could really tell was that she’d clench her fists so tight that her knuckles would turn white and that her mouth was tight and pained, but still plain and unreadable.

When something was worrying her close to home, like the state of her crew or, yeah, Skout. That was the only time Skout could see a bend in her, the slightest of falters, the tiniest of hesitance. 

Her shoulders would slump.

She might grit her teeth, or break composure, for a few seconds.

She may slouch.

And in that moment, her shoulders shot up slightly, and then sagged. Her face had a slight bit of confusion in it. Toth knelt down in front of her.

“Skout. There were no ghost stories tonight. We discussed our battle strategy, and tried to figure out what methods would work against the nomad based on what has and hasn’t worked before. That was it.”

“Oh…I guess my mind was elsewhere tonight! Ha! That happens sometimes, but it won’t again! Sorry Toth! I’ll try to read up on the strategy for tomorrow before I go to bed so I know! Good night! Sleep well!” Skout rushed, her tooth gap whistling slightly as she took in a few breaths after the fact, and began walking away from what used to be a flourishing fire.

“Not so fast.” Toth said. Skout froze in her tracks. She turned around and was surprised to see Toth sitting, looking up at the sky.

She patted the ground next to her, and Skout reluctantly sat back down. She looked at Toth for a minute, trying to read her, before looking back at her gloves and her boots as she hugged her knees.

She really didn’t feel like talking to Toth about her worries and concerns and questions…She liked being open with Toth, Toth was her favorite person…She was strong and powerful and beautiful but very, very kind and very, very bad at these types of things. 

Toth, first and foremost, stood on the right side of the law. She followed orders, and that was mostly it. She wouldn’t understand her questions about the Nomad’s true nature, heck, she may even accuse her of siding with him, her personal months-long enemy, and the enemy of the entire world for 100 years! And she just couldn’t lose her like she lost everybody else…

Wait? Did she just call Toth beautiful? Well, she suppose the word “handsome” may fit her better, and she may prefer that over “beautiful” or “pretty” or “cute,” but she was. Her hair was always neat and tidy, Her eyes were a bright gold that could be the center of flames in somebody’s hell or the suns in somebody’s sky, her hands were weathered and calloused from gripping the handles of blades and axes, and her scar gave her an intimidating face, but it still had soft features…

Yeah, Toth was beautiful, handsome, whatever word that Skout could think of to describe her in this moment, where she stared up at the sparkling sky, body stern but eyes fond, but this was another concern/worry/question/crisis for another day.

Toth uncomfortably cleared her throat, which caused Skout’s head to pick up and look at her. Her eyes may have been tired and sullen at this hour, but she was as twitchy and alert as ever.

She was not good at it.

Yeah, she was _really_ not good at this.

“I know,” _okay, good start._ “That something is bothering you.” _Yes, get to the core of the issue._ “I’m, I don’t, uh,” _don’t stutter! What kind of bounty hunter stutters in front of their subordinate?_

Toth did see Skout as more than just a subordinate, more than a spittoon girl or right-hand man. Something of a friend, a friend that…Fascinated her, a lot. Like, how does your hair do that? Who brings books out to the desert? Wow, how do you not know how to hold a knife? It’s, super simple. It’s like this. God, you’re just so adorable…ly naive. Adorably naive. 

That’s what she meant.

She was more than a  simple soldier, but that didn’t mean she wanted to show weakness in front of her. Weakness meant she could be defeated. Skout didn’t need to know that she could be defeated, not only for the sake of maintaining leadership over a bunch of men who seemed to follow the path of least resistance, but to keep Skout from worrying. She did do that a lot sometimes.

Like now.

“I’m not…” Toth sighed. “I’m not good at this…Stuff. I don’t know what you need. I don’t know if talking will fix this, or some…Heart to heart with someone on your level will help?”

Skout shook her head and looked up at the stars. She suddenly looked very tired. Very weary.

“Okay…Are the men giving you trouble again? Or a civilian in a town we passed?”

Skout shook her head again. Toth sighed, and Skout looked worried. Worried like “Toth was mad at her” worried. She wasn’t.

“Do you just want to sit out here with me for a while?” Toth asked. She was defeated when it came to things like this, that she could admit.

“Didn’t you say we had to get started bright and early tomorrow morning?” Skout croaked, looking nervous.

Toth shrugged and gave a half-smile, “You could always sleep in the wagon for a bit tomorrow. Nobody else would notice.”

Skout gave a small smile, as well. Too mellowed out and sad-looking to be her normal, chipper smile, but still a smile, nonetheless. 

“Thanks.” Pause. “It is really nice out tonight.” Her voice was soft and sad.

That wouldn’t do. That wouldn’t do at all.

“Hey…Do you know what that arrangement of stars is?” Toth asked. Skout shot up and looked excitedly back at her companion. She ran from her seat next to Toth to bring back a thick tome, “Wilderness Survival Vol. XII,” a book known for its section on constellations. She read out sections about powerful warriors and fierce creatures and common things that were somehow represented by those twinkling dots in the sky, millions upon millions of miles apart.

Did Toth honestly believe that this would fix whatever problem Skout could be having? No, but Skout seemed to be too distracted, babbling on and on about what stars could be seen when and where and what they were like back home and whatnot. 

The weight was still probably rested on her shoulders, but at the moment, it was easily forgotten. The weight wasn’t crushing her anymore, or if it was, she didn’t notice, and didn’t say.

Toth honestly liked seeing Skout excited about things, which was good, because it happened often. Skout’s eyes would light up, and her hair would bounce in its own fluid movement with her. She gestured wildly and loudly, she really was filled with tenacity and terrific energy. It was very enrapturing and…Nice to see.

Not that she’d ever admit that to anybody. Not to Skout, or her men, or even the Don. Toth was willing to die with-and or-over the fact that Skout being excited and passionate kind of made her heart do weird somersaults and made her stomach feel weird and she didn’t like it.

Toth looked over at her companion, with a certain fondness. A fondness that to her soldiers may look like a grimace or her usual plain but angry expression, but she knew Skout would know the difference. She didn’t seem to notice and Toth almost snorted at that. 

This went on for a while’s more, and soon enough, Skout’s voice had petered out and she had fallen asleep, resting her head on Toth’s shoulder. Her tooth gap whistled while she breathed, and Toth felt…Something in her chest, while gazing at her.

Something that felt suspiciously like an emotion. But, she let it happen. What was she going to do to stop it?

She herself had watched the sky go from to blue to indigo, to the inky blackness of night, to the purple sky that  precedes dawn that laid before her now. Over the course of the evening, Skout had moved from resting her head upon Toth’s right shoulder, to resting her head on her thigh.

And because of this, Toth hadn’t moved an inch, she had but one thought hanging on her mind, and it seemed that, like with most things, she was committed to it. As she moved her head for the first time in ages to make sure the other soldiers were asleep, and therefore, wouldn’t witness what she was going to do, what act she was going to commit.

She gently smoothed the soft orange bangs away from Skout’s forehead, leant down for a moment, and gave a gentle kiss to her forehead. Skout barely stirred when it happened, or when Toth rose up like a shot. She felt exhilarated, like she does in the heat of battle, but it was a different kind of excited in that moment that made her feel the way she did. It was a warm excitement that crawled its way from her heart to her chest. 

She let out a tiny, very quiet, lovestruck sigh. As long as nobody could see her, she’d be fine. As long as Jethro, Null, Skout, or, god forbid, Red Manuel didn’t see her, she’d be fine. Nobody could see her be soft, or weak, or frankly, anything of that sort. She had gotten that Captain’s position by being the toughest of the tough and it appeared that there still was members in her ranks that thought they could waltz right in and take that from her.

Toth’s mind wandered while she watched her dear friend slumber, and she sighed once more, a heavy, weary sigh this time. She thought about Skout, the Nomad, her quest, the life she lived then, the life she lived now, before her thoughts circled back to Skout.

She still had no idea what was bothering Skout so much. She stuck too close to Toth to _really_ get into any unknown problems with any civilians, her home life was something she brought up every now and then, so there probably wasn’t any quandaries there…Toth didn’t know what it could be. Perhaps she was just as tired and as frustrated that they hadn’t have caught the dreaded, cursed Nomad that had gotten them into this position in the first place.

As Toth carried Skout back to where she had set up for the night before _(although Toth was fairly certain none of her men would try to tease her for effectively becoming Skout’s pillow for the night, she still couldn’t let things like that happen, right? Why risk it?)_ she was struck with a thought, that both filled her with a sense of relief, worry, and a sense of complacency;

_Whatever problem was plaguing Skout, I’m sure we’ll know of it soon enough._

 

**Author's Note:**

> I said this on my Tumblr, and I'll say it again: I will fill this whole ship-tag, on my own, if I have to.  
> Also: Skout has a tooth gap, and Toth is basically completely littered with scars. I will fight you on this.  
> Let me know if you want me to write more of these kind of stories, because I certainly will!
> 
> Tumblr:  
> https://juliastartoons.tumblr.com


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